Posts tagged web

Media fragmentation has been the subject of many a conference agenda and there appears to be no end in sight. Personally, I remember when all I had to worry about was newspapers, magazines, radio and TV and that alone seemed too much. We went from a world with just a few broadcast channels to a 1000 channel cable universe and most of us just responded with the common statement, “there still nothing on TV”. Ah the blessing of ignorance. That’s changed with the introduction of TIVO and the DVR.

What I failed to recognize but now see clearly is that the TV 10 years ago was just like the Internet is today. It was loaded with information, much of it semi relevant but interesting none the less. However, with the antiquated TV guide listings you’d have to sit down and pour through the paper magazine to really understand what was on. You then had to set aside time in your life to participate in the media because once it aired it was unlikely you’d get another change to see the show anytime soon. Then when fragmentation seemed to hit it’s peak and we were all but ready to give up, we find ourselves in the world of the DVR.

The way I look at it, is that in TV (v1.0) I had a device that was not portable that I had to schedule my life around yet contained some interesting information. In TV (v1.0) I lived with it in a blissfully ignorant way, taking advantage of it when it served my purposes but not caring about it when I had other things going on. The user interface in TV (v1.0) was simple in a Googlesque way: power, volume up/down, channel up/down. However, true usability couldn’t be had without a subscription to a weekly paper guide to the services (aka TV Guide). Life was simple, the usability of the product was handicapped by the burden of using a TV guide to know what to watch.

Then I got TV (v2.0), and everything changed. The interface became way more complicated with search, on screen guides, and even (in the case of TIVO) pattern analysis. With TV (v2.0) I found it worthwhile to no longer worry about my schedule. I could record any show I wanted and watch it whenever I wanted. TV consumption data shows that this has worked. But despite the great tools I still sit in front of my 1000 channel TV and spend most of my time watching shows on 2-4 networks. The reality is I feel like I’m drinking from the fire hose and someone needs to come up with a good way to find the shows I want to watch. Until that day (and BTW TIVO isn’t what I’m talking about), I find solace in the media outlets I’ve chosen for regular viewing with a show sprinkled in here and there from other channels.

So now take all the problems that exist in my TV (v.2.0) example and make them mobile and ubiquitous – that’s the Internet. Between following people on Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Facebook, etc. and reading my RSS feeds, Twines, ensembli, NYTimes, etc. I have no time left for anything else. When it comes to the web I drink from the fire hose every day whether it’s on my laptop or blackberry I’m overly connected. While the problem that TV presents me with seems eminently manageable in my life (after all it is only entertainment), what I get out of the web is information, the stuff I’m not willing to just ignore. I’m not exactly sure how to get a handle around the information feed I pull from the web. I crave the time when some autonomous agent finds and filters all my content and only presents me with what’s relevant, but I’m sure even then it’ll be overwhelming. Until such a day arrives I’ll be sporadically tweeting, digging, google readering, evernoting, and hoping that at some point I’ll have time for myself.